A letter from Ms Dorice Mazengo

A few weeks ago our school in Haukipudas had the pleasure of widening our network. A former student of Jangwani Secondary School, Ms Dorice Mazengo is currently studying in Finland.

Ms Mazengo wrote us a letter with some information of herself and also of her former school. Here are some main points of her letter:

“In short I studied at Jangwani from January 2000 to February 2006. That was ordinary and advanced level of secondary education. After that I joined institute of social work from September 2006. I was taking Bachelor Degree in Human Resource Management, but I couldn’t finish because of the school fees. Then I was at home and later one of my uncles who was here (Finland), took me here for studying. I came to start school again. That was in 2008. Now I am a student at Savonia ammmattikorkeakoulu taking bachelor degree in Industrial management 3rd year.

I am too an orphan and the first born with one younger sister and two brothers who are still in Tanzania.

I am happy to hear of such kind of program because I am interested too in helping people in either way, and I promise to do as much as I can to make these dreams come true.

The school is very old although some renovation has been done. It has also a big compound with a lot of activities going on like classrooms, library, laboratories (for physics, chemistry, biology and nutrition) and a computer room. There are dormitories, staff´s and teacher’s offices, kitchen for cookeries, needle work room, and a kiosk.

I am not sure exactly how big it is but it’s quite a big school and it has more than 1200 students including disabled students. It has two shift classes, ie morning and afternoon shift. That is because of insufficient number of class rooms. There are seven streams of studies, ie P,Q,R,S,X,Y & Z. P is for pure science, Q for science and needle work, R for science and cookery ,S for art and cookery, X for economics and bookkeeping, Y for art and needle work and Z for pure art. This means divisions of the classes. Computer course was optional and it had to be paid out of the school fees. This means not all students are able to attend the class. Jangwani is a government school but all students have to pay school fees and some other school contributions. The age of the students ranges between 14-22 years, and it is a popular school because it is at the center and takes students who are doing well in studies (talented).

In my opinion the school needs a hall for meeting, dormitories are too small, a nice and big library with necessary facilities like books, etc would be necessary. Computers and the Internet connection should be in the library and free for students. Also there are a lot of students who need help to continue their studies.

As far as I know, there are some art activities and sports too but we don’t take it much. Students are engaged in netball, dance, poems, singing and other. We used to arrange some concerts among students and participate in school celebrations.

Regards,

Dorice”

-by AMO

Hardware is being installed

A couple of weeks ago I received this email from Mr Bosco from Jangwani Secondary School in Tanzania:

"I am kindly sending this thankyou note to you and your students for the support you have given us. we have bought 20 Hard Disks for our computers and we have alreadys read installed the computer ready for use thankyou so much.

My regards to your students.

Yours,
John"

Later I was informed by Mrs Mwinula that the school had installed the disks on 17 computers so far. In the process they had discovered that three PCs had some problems and were looking for the solution to be able to install the remaining three.

This was good news - we're happy to know our students' donation is well spent!

-by AMO

ASSISTING JANGWANI GIRL SCHOOL

The students of Haukipudas wanted to share their wealth and donated 800€ for new hard drives to our partner school in Dar es Salaam in the last school year. They worked for a day and gave their salary for a campaign organized by the student council. They will continue assisting Jangwani Secondary School in the future too. The next task is to establish an Internet connection for the use of students there.

Our students wanted to carry on with our long-lasting tradition of assisting students in need. This time they wanted to help their peer in Tanzania. Jangwani chose a student, a disabled orphan, who needed assistance and our students donated small sums of money from their own pockets to sponsor this girl. In May 2010 I was happy to transfer over 270€ to be used for her education.

Thanks to the UNESCO office in Tanzania and Ms Modester Mwinula in particular, we can be assured the money will be put in good use.

-by AMO

UNESCO WEEK

In December 2009 we had a special theme week in our school. The goal was to make sure our students truly understand what it means to be a UNESCO - school and to promote the guiding principles of UNESCO.

Thus we had something special laid out for each day of the week, naturally somehow related to UNESCO themes. We saw animated films that a group of students had made, opened an art exhibition presenting art works not only made by our students but also from our partner school Medina High School, USA. The UNESCO themes were also dealt with in ordinary lessons and in the end of the week there was a quiz for all students.

The highlight of the week was the Tanzanian day on Dec 9th. We had the privilege of having five most interesting guests informing and entertaining us.

Henry Shoma

Miriam Attias

















Menard and Deogratius

Kai Tirkkonen











We had two dancers/musicians from Tampere, Menard and Deogratius Mponda, a young Tanzanian student Henry Happy Shoma from Oulu, a Red Cross worker Miriam Attias from Oulu and a photographer Kai Tirkkonen from Haukipudas.

Our visitors attended classes in the morning sharing their knowledge about Tanzania and Africa in general. Later that day we had workshops in which we learnt even more about their previous homecountry and the work of Red Cross. An absolutely fabulous - and sweaty - experience was to learn an African dance and a song to it. After getting first hand taste of this kind of self expression, we saw a breathtaking show with singing, drums and dancing. The performers' skills literally filled us with awe and admiration. Finally we listened to a presentation and saw fantastic photographs taken in the deepest Tanzania, among the Makonde tribe. The tribe makes sculptures out of ebony and Mr Tirkkonen imports them to help these poor craftsmen. We got to admire these beautiful pieces of art too.

The day was a great success and we want to thank all our guests from the bottom of our hearts!

-by AMO